What are the uses of native tapioca starch in food?

Tapioca starch is a powder made from tapioca after extraction dehydration and drying. Tapioca starch has two categories: various modified starches and native starch, which are widely used in the food industry and non-food industries.

Native tapioca starch has many applications in food like food formulations, confectionery production, and beverage production.

Native tapioca starch is widely used in food formulations, such as bakery products, and in the production of extruded snack foods. Foods include canned foods, frozen foods, dry mixes, bakery products, snack foods, condiments, soups, sausages, dairy products, meat and fish products, and baby foods.

Native tapioca starch in food production

Native tapioca starch and various modified starches have many uses in confectionery production, such as gelling, thickening, stabilizing the system, enhancing foaming, controlling crystallization, bonding, film-forming, and adding gloss. Low-viscosity tapioca starches are widely used in gelatinized confectionery such as jellies and chewing gums. The most commonly used is acid starches because of their excellent reversibility and gelling ability, which are more pronounced when exposed to sugar. Dry starch is used as a mold release agent in candy making. Starch-based polysaccharides enable the production of sugar-free chewing gum.

In beverage production, tapioca starch sweeteners are preferred to sucrose because the former improves processing and enhances product characteristics, and in combination with other sweeteners, can fully satisfy consumer needs. The high hydrolysis syrup formed by the hydrolysis of tapioca starch is an ideal source of fermentable sugars for beer brewing.

Modified tapioca starch can be customized according to the specific requirements put forward by users for special applications. Modified tapioca starch or starch derivatives have been used as thickeners, binders, bulking agents, and stabilizers, as well as optimal bulking agents, sweeteners, flavor carriers, and fat substitutes. What's more, modified tapioca starch is used as a colloidal stabilizer in beverages containing solid ingredients.